THE IMPENDING END OF THE AGE AND ITS CATASTROPHE.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3993, 15 October 1881, Page 1

THE IMPENDING END OF THE AGE AND ITS CATASTROPHE.

(To the Editor of the Evening Star )

Sir,—Will you kindly publish' the following article,- taken from a Chicago (U.S.), publication—" Our Rest." It so well puts the question of the approaching crisis of the world, which I have for several years insisted upon, consequent upon an earnest study or prophecy, that I think the Thames public (some of them, at any rate) will read the article with great interest and profit. Editoe of Enoch.

"Do we see any si em that our social order is being undermined, and that a (treat revolutionary catastrophe if impending, not only in our own country (United States), but throughout Christendom? It is with no desire to in* dulee in mere sensationalism that we feel constrained to answer: *We do;' and our ground for this conclusion will be best indicated by connecting it with the second answer to the objection abore referred to. The second answer is as follows: The gravest significance of the present increasing sign of lawlessness arises from the fact that it manifests many unmistakable signs of • coming to a head; in other words, the various diverse lines on which it works seem very plainly to be converging to a - central point; a final" issue, namely, that materialistic Atheism of which Antichrist-is to be in his own person the embodiment. This is not simply our own reading of the signs of the times; it is not the opinion merely of idle, narrow-minded ' prophecy-mongers ;* it is the distinct admission of men who have themselves relinquished all faith in Christianity and in God, and who aritici* pate a godless future without sorrow, but not without dismay. Take, a§ an example, the words of a distinguished writer of this class, as quoted by Dr Anderson in bis ' Coming Prince:' * The denial of the existence of Gotland of a future state, is the detbronenjtut of conscience, and society will pass, jo say the least, through a dangerous interval before social science can fill the vacant throne; - In the meantime, mankind, or some'portions of it, may be in danger of en anarchy of self-interest, compressed, for the purpose of political order, by a despotism of force. That science and criticism, acting—thanks to the liberty won by political effort— with a freedom never known before, have delivered us from a mass of dark and degrading superstitions, we own with heartfelt thankfulness to the deliverers, and in the firm conviction that the~re« moval of false beliefs and of the authority of institutions founded on them, cannot, prove in the end anything bat a.blessing to mankind. But at the same time, the . foundations of general morality have inevitably been shaken, and a crisis has been brought on, the gravity of which nobody can fail to see, and nobody but a fanatic of materialism can see without the most serious misgiving; and yet people affirm that ' all th'ngs continue as they were . from the beginning.' A bigger falsehood was never uttered. There has been nothing in the history of man like the present situation The decadence of the ancient mythologies is very far from affording a parallel. The Reformation was a tremen- t dous earthquake; it shook down the fabric of medisarel religion, and. as a - consequence of the disturbance in the

leiißlettS Bpierß, filled the world with revolutions and wars. But it left the authority of the Bible unshaken, and men might feel that the destructive process had its limit, and that adamant was still beneath their feet." But now the fact that the Bible itself has any Divine authority is called in. question, it' not contemptuously denied, and at the same time materialistic science claims, in the grand generalisation of evolution, to have discovered the key to the solution of the mystery of creation, the part of the Creator being omitted. This statement is a fact plain to all, and in it consists another fact that the end of the age is at our doors. The Deity will not long permit His authority to be questioned by wicked men, nor His word to be contemptuously denied by mankind, so He cuts them oft for their temerity by war, pestilence, and famine (Rev. 6tb chap.) Thus the world 'finds itself; brought to a crisis the character of which any one may realise by distinctly presenting to himself the idea of existence without a God ' (Goldwin Smith, Macmillan's Magazine, Feb., 1878). These are indeed startling and remarkable words from such a source; and they do not stand alone, but are echoed by men of every school of thought. • There are clear signs,' says the eminent Congregational minister, Mr it. W. Dale, 11 that th«« movement of theological cpecu lation whirh begtm in the sixteenth century, and which ba.s a-sumed a permanent form in the confessions and creeds of the great Protestant churches, is coming to au end.' 'The attempt to put back the rising tide of scepticism,^ says the author of the 'Coming Prince'—who is, we are disposed to judge from internal evidence,one of 'the Plymouth brethren,' —• is hopeless. Indeed, the movement is but one of the phases of the inter se mental activity which marks the age. The reign of creeds is passed. The days are gone for ever when men will believe what their fathers believed, without a question. Home, in some phase of its development, has a strange charm for minds of a certain caste, and rationalism is fascinating not a few: but orthodoxy in the old sense is dead* (p. 15).'■•' Half a century ago,' writes the broad church historian, James Anthony Froude, ■■■' any one who open'y questioned the truth of Christianity was treated as a public offender, and was excommunicated by society. Now, while one set of men are bringing back mediae valism, science and criticism are assailing with impunity the authority of the Bible ; miracles are declared impossible; even Theism itself is treated as an open queS i tion, and subjects which in our fathers' time were approached only with the deepest reverence and solemnity, are discussed among the present generation with as much freedom as the common problems of natural philosophy. In a word, and to speak in plain terms, the most essential doctrines of the Gospel are not only being called in question, but the fundamental conceptions of even natural religion, such as the existence of the Divine government and the inherent immortality of man, have day by day less hold on the consciences of the majority of those who nevertheless still profess and call themselves Christians. Thus society breaths an atmosphere charged with the germs of moral disease and death, and a doll gray mist of negative atheism, in the form of agnosticism ', is spreading over Christendom, out of which, as by a kind of ghastly condensation,' there will be speedily evolved, first in portentious outline, and then in hideous and terrific distinctness, the form of him (Antichrist) 1 whobpposeth and exalteth himself above everything that is called God, or an object of worship ; so that He sitteth in the temple of God; showing Himself that He is God 1 (2nd Thess, ii. 4).—Eev. Wm. Mauds in Christian Herald."